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The Tri-Valley Community Foundation was packing up and locking its doors on Friday as the end of the month nears.
Ron Hyde, who’s been running the foundation since the dismissal of its president Dave Rice, said earlier this month that he expected the TVCF would have to break its lease and close by the end of June.
Hyde has recently referred all questions to an Oakland P.R. firm “on advice of counsel.” That firm, Full Court Press, has not responded to questions from the Pleasanton Weekly.
Although Hyde previously said he expected the foundation to file for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy by the end of June, no filing could be confirmed.
It’s unclear where the TVCF would operate from as it wraps up its operations.
OK. Being the first to comment, I would like to ask a question I asked in another venue. It was said, the charity was in debt for $3 million, the question I asked was to whom does the charity OWE the $3 million. Was it salaries, payroll taxes, vendors or just other charities? Heaven forbid the former chairman is owed back pay. In any event its sad to see the demise of an organization that has done so much good for our community.
My guess is that it’s not salaries, at least not the inflated ones at the top of the organizational scale.
Mike
I would like to know what The Pleasanton Weekly is going to do about the hundreds of thousands of dollars used for matching funds for the Weekly Holiday Fund, that were taken from accounts from the Tri Valley Community Foundation without the funds owners permission. This was at least $50,000 per year for 4 or 5 years I believe. If there is over 3 million dollars inappropriately transferred in the foundation, possibly up to 10% of it went to benefit the Pleasanton Weekly Holiday Fund.
This seems to be a great example of an Obama based free give away….what a waste disguised as a charity…where is the public outrage!? Ptown residents flip out when a cop is rude but it’s cool when 3 million in tax money goes missing….what a sad representation of Pleasanton residents.
@Steve – AGAIN, the TVCF has been around a lot longer than Obama has been in office. Get a new song. “Blame Obama for Everything Bad” is not only old, no one is listening anymore.
The TVCF held the funds for many of the organizations. One that I am familiar with had over $10,000 in their “TVCF bank”. The money was donated to the local organization and held by TVCF until checks were requested. They have lost it all. That is one example of who lost the money.
@common sense:
My guess is that they have to repay the organizations they got money to spend in certain ways but spent whichever way they wanted. Also the money they held in trust for other groups. I think the stories mention a couple of examples there.
It is water under the bridge at this point but the question has never been answered. How could a governing Board of Directors not catch this until it was too late? These issues have been going on for 6 years and the Board did not see any discrepancies? All you would have to do it take a close look at the checking accounts to see that the funds held for other organizations were not being distributed as promised.
It is also the Board of Directors that approves the annual budget. How could people were hired without their knowledge? All they would have to do is look at the checks that were written to these people and ask the CEO some basic questions. If expenses routinely exceeded income there should have been red flags every time they closed the books for the year. Excuse the pun, but something does not add up.
They Board didn’t fullfill it’s basic duty. Because of their negligence the Foundation is now bankrupt and they were forced to hire a PR firm to clean up the mess they oversaw!
Concerned,
Precisely my point.
Mike
I think that as a response to Concerned Citizen and Mike, the usual way people in Pleasanton succeed at hiding wrongdoing is that whenever someone starts asking questions about something, those in charge try to cover it up. People in this are experts at doing this.
They do this by shaming the people asking the questions into silence. One way they do this is by saying that to get all the information that is being asked ‘wastes time.’ They then go to the other Board members and say that the questioning Board member is a burden and not part of the so-called ‘team.’ They also refuse to provide simple answers to questions or answer questions with paragraphs of mumblespeak that don’t address the original question. They also try the ‘cult’ tactic by saying everything that is going on is ‘confidential.’
“response”, you describe the administration of the school district to a tee.
Great, detailed, special reports on fraudulent “foundations” aired repeatedly on CNN today and this evening. 360. It started a week ago, with various exposures, i.e. disabled veterans groups, military dog relocations, etc.
The laws are ‘loose’ in the charity arena, which is why so many questionable people tend to rotate on charities…like Exec Directors, etc. Several were in debt with ‘expenditures’ greater than intake. Worth watching…probably play all evening. Subject is likely on their site. they’ve devoted a reporter on the topic for several weeks, in an attempt to explain the ‘process’.